Editor’s note: This is an opinion column.
By Bobby Mathews, Sports Editor
This is the last column I’ll write as sports editor at The Tribune.
I plan on sticking around a bit, doing the odd bit of coverage of games when I can and likely coordinating football coverage through the rest of the 2022 season if I’m able to do it. But soon there’ll be another person with the title of sports editor, and they’ll put their own stamp on the job.
If I have any advice for the next person in the slot, it’s this: This job is hard, but it comes with some really cool opportunities, too. You can never let this job be about you. When 99 percent of what you cover involves prep sports athletes, you have to remember that this job is about the kids you cover.
Two years from now, many of these kids may not even remember my name, but they’ll remember how I treated them and how I wrote about them. Their parents will remember how their kids’ eyes lit up when they saw their name in the paper. They’ll remember that I was there to cover them whether they won or lost.
Writing about the student-athletes in The Tribune’s coverage area is an honor. I hope the next sports editor understands that.
I want to thank the coaches that trusted me, the parents who supported me and the kids who played the games. In the end, those kids are what it’s about, and my interactions with them are what I’ll carry away from this job.
I haven’t always been right. I’ve screwed up on occasion. I’ve often come away wishing that I could have done more, or done it better.
One of the things that I always try to do is cover women’s sports as seriously as I cover men’s sports. That meant showing up at volleyball games and women’s basketball games. It meant asking questions of the womens’ coaches in the same way that I’d ask questions of the men’s coaches.
I think that made a difference in our coverage, and I know the young women and their coaches appreciated it.
Sometimes I had to ask hard questions or write difficult things. Sometimes people were angry. Back when I was just starting out, one of my journalism professors — the great Gordon “Mac” McKerrall — told me that if people were always happy with you, you probably weren’t doing your job.
I put miles on my car and lost hours of sleep to go cover games that might not have gotten covered otherwise. Like the Pinson Valley and Leeds basketball teams playing state tournament games with their tip-offs coming within a couple of hours of one another — one game in Hanceville and one game in Jacksonville — and I made it to both games.
Lord, that was hard. It did result in the Leeds basketball Twitter account requesting a state trooper escort for me, though. Even in jest, #gethimatrooper was a great idea.
I got to cover teams that won state titles and teams that fell just short of that goal. I got to cover teams that struggled and teams that rose up to do what no one else thought they could. Whatever gripes I might have about the job, covering the teams and the athletes was never one.
The sports editor job is go-go-go all the time, and sometimes I felt like my coverage was a mile wide and an inch deep. But that is the hazard of being one person tasked with covering eight different high schools. Regardless, I’m going to miss this place and these people.
Like Lewis Grizzard said: “It wasn’t always easy, but I sure had fun.” Thank you, readers, for letting me be a little part of your lives over the last 15 months or so. I’ll see you down the road.
Bobby Mathews is — for a little while at least — still sports editor at The Tribune, as well as the author of the novel, Living the Gimmick. Reach him on Twitter: @bobbymathews or via email: bobby.mathews@trussvilletribune.com